Around 400 pizzas were distributed within minute. (Express photo by Parveen Khanna/ Representational) A group of five friends set out from Amritsar on a cold Saturday morning. They didn’t have much time to organise a regular langar, so they collected ‘regular-sized’ pizzas from a Haryana mall and set up a stall at the Singhu border.
Around 400 pizzas were distributed within minutes as a huge crowd, including the protesting peasants and residents from nearby areas, queued up.
The ‘pizza langar’ has since hogged headlines and garnered compliments from different quarters, and also brickbats from a certain section.
“The farmers who gave the dough for pizzas can also afford to have one themselves,” says Shanbir Singh Sandhu, who organised the ‘pizza langar’ with his four friends for the peasants protesting at the Delhi-Haryana border against the contentious agri-marketing laws.
“We didn’t have much time to organise a regular lentils-chapatti langar…. So we came up with this idea,” says Sandhu, who is himself a farmer and an economics student at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar.
The farmers have been protesting at several border points into Delhi for over two weeks over their demands to repeal the new legislation, which they claim would benefit the corporates, and end the traditional wholesale markets and the minimum support price regime.
Sandhu’s friend, Shahnaz Gill, underscored that people get bored eating the same thing every day. “We thought we should bring them (farmers) something else to keep their spirits up,” he said.
The 21-year-old student of agriculture says this is the first time they have organised a ‘pizza langar’, expressing happiness that people have appreciated their efforts.
However, Sandhu says it is unfortunate and totally unacceptable that some people were ridiculing farmers having pizzas.
“Few people just cannot digest that a farmer can have a car, wear good clothes and have a pizza. The farmer has moved on from dhoti-kurta to jeans and T-shirt,” the 25-year-old student says. “It’s about time these people grew up.”
One of the reasons for organising a ‘pizza langar’ was to change the public perception about farmers, he adds.
Gill says no one has the right to comment on what a farmer should eat or wear.
“People have been calling us ‘so-called farmers’. Before making any such comment, they should come and meet us first, he says. “They will get to know that our thinking is much better than theirs.”
The five friends have decided to organise another such langar, which they say will be better and bigger.
It can be pizza or burger or something else, too, Sandhu says.
Here is how netizens reacted to the same.
Indians are obsessed with food- even the Bhakt narrative cannot escape this obsession. Biryani at Shaheen bagh, pizza langar at singhu border – someone should look into writing about the politicisation of food.
— Samya Singh (@samyyyasays) December 13, 2020
The vegetable toppings used on a pizza are grown by the farmer, so why can’t there be Pizza langar in the Kisaan Protest!#FarmBills2020#Boycott_JioSaavn
— Rajkirat Kaur (@___rajkirat___) December 13, 2020
In some countries Pizza Is Normal dailly routine Food.
And second thing is that the Pizza is Given As A Langar (Sewa) By the People who went at the protest for their Contribution.
No Average farmer eats Pizza everyday.🤷♂️
And Sewa is a Very common practise.@dhruv_rathee— Davinderjit Singh (@davinderjit2000) December 13, 2020
Tuada Pizza, Pizza. Humara Pizza, Masala Papad? #PizzaLangar https://t.co/39d6twatBz
— Ankit Dasgupta 🏳️🌈 (@ankydasgupta) December 12, 2020
